May Calendar Journal Page

Hi again everyone - I promise this is my last post for May!! but I had to get this one in before the clock turned midnight and it was June already!!! Lol!

As I told you with last months calendar journal page I have been struggling with my creativity at home and I forced myself to do the calendar journal page and then wasn't so happy with the results.  This month I decided to try not to force it so much and just see what happened!!

So for once I started with the day spaces - I had bought a box of A4 sticky labels a while ago and came across them at the beginning of the month and suddenly wondered if they would take ink well. So one day when I had a few minutes space I started blending some distress ink onto one of the sheets with a blending tool. My thinking was - sticky backed so will be easy to put on the page.

It took the ink beautifully and even let me ghost by dropping water on it and blotting off!!!

So I cut it up to the required number rounded the corners and edged them with vintage photo distress ink!!

Step one completed - no sweat!!  I was very happy as I usually do this step at the end and struggle with it!! 

These are the colours that I used!

Next came the background!!! I decided that I wanted the page to be very bright as lately all my work seems to end up getting very dark and grungy!!  Seems easy!!! Well not so much so!!

Attempt - one!!

 Nice bright similar colours (mica sprays for some bling) - but really didn't work with the space squares!!!

Attempt - 2!

So tried something darker so it would be a contract to the spaces. (used masking fluid dribbled on to created the lines and splats then Black white and grey Dylusions ink sprays and a gold mica spray! threw on some rock salt while it was drying)

 Loved it but again didn't really work with the squares!!!

The background I eventually used was a mop up page (done a few months back) which I added some yellow spray to and added some water splatters which I blotted off!! Dylusions inks of course!!

this one worked!!

So this is what it turned out like.

After randomly adding the squares (taking the backing off wasn't as easy as I thought it would be - note to self - bend a corner backwards and the backing slides off a little bit so you can get an edge lol) I found there was a couple of strips of the paper left so they got stuck on to!!

For the month I had been playing around with chip board letters which you got the letter and the surround and I had used the surround as a template to add crackle paste to the black/grey background to create May!  while I was playing with the crackle paste I had added it to the letters!!

So while trying to sort out my craft desk so that I could finish this page I came across the letters and they worked perfectly.

In the same sorting out session this butterfly fell out of one of my journals ( I had coloured it in on one of Kate Cranes classes and hadn't used it yet) onto this page and It looked so good I just glued it down!! Love it when that happens!

So the final touches were to colour May with some distress ink using a blending tool and then rubbed on a bit of Stickles to make the letters shine.  I also added some to the butterfly wings (they aren't stuck down so flap when you move the page) and put some clear crackle on its body to add dimension - none of these show in the picture!!

I did play around with the idea of adding the year and a quote but I decided I liked it as it is!

So it was finally done - last day of May! but I'm happy with it and I feel like my MOJO is slowly coming back.

I hope you all have a MOJO filled Month!!

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France Papillon Workshop weekend at Middlesburgh in May

Hi!

At the beginning of this month the lovely Mrs Sue Tucker of Art Workshops arranged for the wonderful France Papillon to return and do another weekend of workshops for us, after her doing her first teaching session in the UK with us at the end of last year!!!!  Fortunately we didn't scare her off and she returned to give us another truly inspirational weekend of classes!!
We did 2 half day workshops on the Saturday and a full day on the Sunday!! and when I say a full day I mean it!! France really packs the time full of techniques, information and most of all creative fun!!!
Once again I encourage you to attend one of her workshops if you have the chance or if that's not possible have a look at her blog and website as she has done many videos that are wonderful!! Its great to be able to see how she produces her own art!!!  I could watch and listen to her for hours!!
On the Saturday morning we did 'wishful chronicles - an art journaling tag book'  This is mine!!  not finished but I love it!!  Fast creative fun!

In the afternoon we did 'tell a tale' - and made a stamp storage book!!  I loved doing all the details and layers on this book cover!!!  Need to make some more so I have a set for all of my clear stamps!!! (wishful thinking maybe???)

Then on to the Sunday we did 'altered possibilities' - and we made a Coptic bound journal from scratch and did some journal pages in the afternoon to christen it!!!

Seeing as how I primarily do journaling, I loved this project!! I wanted to run home and make more of my own journals but I'm struggling to get decent watercolour paper without having to spend and arm and a leg lol!!!

As you can see I wasn't kidding when I said France workshops are well packed!!

Yet another inspirational, exciting weekend!!

Thanks as always to Sue for having the vision to start doing these workshops in the North East and for getting us such amazing tutors, and to the A team who make the days run smoothly with their efficient setting up!!

Not least a huge thank you to France for coming all the way over here again to share some of her time, knowledge and love of creating with us!!!

Ok when is she back again?!?!?!  LOL

Have a great week everyone!!

PS if anyone has suggestions of where I can get reasonable priced hot press smooth watercolour paper I would appreciate hearing about it!!!   Thanks in advance!! 

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Face-ing your fears - Whimsy Faces workshop with Tracy Scotts

Hi Everyone - well in my last post I was raving about the wonderful Tutors we get at AFTH and Tracy Scott is one of them.  However she lives quite a long way for AFTH so she has started to come up and do 2 day workshops over a weekend!! Makes sense for her because of all the travelling and is awesome for us because we get a double dose of her teaching - which makes me very happy!!

So we did the Index cards on the Saturday and moved on to Whimsy faces on the Sunday.

She talked us through the basics of drawing a face and had us do a couple of practise runs and then went on to the main piece done in out journal!!

These are what I created!!

This final piece still needs a bit more added to it but I'm very pleased with how she turned out!!

Thanks Tracy for an all round wonderful creative weekend!!

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Index Card Art Worshop with Tracy Scott

Hi Folks I hope your all doing well!

As usual I am behind on my blog posts so I am going to try and catch up on them over the weekend so I apologise now if you get a few together.

Last month I was back at my home from home AFTH doing another workshop with Tracy Scott.  I have done several classes with her now and love not only her creativity but also the way she teaches!!

 She is a great lady and she makes the classes so much fun but you also learn a lot!!!

Tracy has done the 'Index card a day challenge' run by Daisy Yellow where you create art on an index card every day for 2 months  and she wanted to pass on some of her ideas for creating quick art at this small size.  

This is what I produced in the day - most of them are not finished but quite a lot of them don't need much more done to them.  I was amazed how quickly I can create small pieces of art just using a small range of supplies - also how different they turned out!

I'm going to join Daisy Yellow on the 1st of June (gulp that's in 2 days time) to challenge myself to create something every day for 2 months!! After doing these cards with Tracy I know that doing this challenge will give my flagging MOJO the boost that it needs!

Why don't you give it a try - you might be surprised by what you can make!! Click this Daisy Yellow link to take you to the challenge.

Have fun guys!!

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Regular Art Journaling with Kate Crane - May

Hi everyone!!

We had a wonderful time today at our regular art journaling workshop with Kate Crane at AFTH.
This month Kate wanted to show us how to use repeating images and how to make them work on our journal pages!!
This was my first page - love this butterfly which is off Tim Holtz - 'Perspective' stamp set (think I might have to add this set to my ever growing wish list!!).
We made a lovely painty background with Dylusions and Amsterdam paints and then coloured in our chosen images with whatever we chose - in my case I used Dylusions inks and Prismacolour pencils with a little bit of Stickles to add some bling!!
Its not quite finished as I want to add a bit more doodling and shadows but I love how bold it looks with these large butterfly's!!!  I wasn't sure that I could get it to would work with such a big focal image but with Kate's great tuition I managed to pull it all together!!
As one of my friends pointed out - its not Grungy!!!! lol - miracle! as most of my work recently seems to end up looking rather grungy!!!

I did several more backgrounds in the afternoon (finger painting was fun!!) and started colouring some more images to do a different format of the repeating images but I ran out of time - how rude they made us go home at home time!! lol!!

I hope you all get a chance to try something new this month - how about having a go at your own repeating images!!
Happy creating everyone!! 

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Stampotique Boutique Workshop No1 - Karen Hayselden

Hi!

Last month the lovely Karen Hayselden started a monthly Stampotique workshop at AFTH.

The idea is to do workshops each month creating all sorts of different mixed media and papercraft projects incorporating the large and lovely range of stamps that Stampotique Originals produce!! 

Karen kept us on our toes in the first workshop and had us using all sorts of products and techniques and these are my versions of the 2 projects which she taught us!!

Loved this first one with the amazing crackle detail on the tile and the wonderful butterfly which sits several inches proud of the tile!! Wonderful design Karen!!!

The second one was this cute little 3 dimensional cube with this very cute cupcake on!!

I had a wonderful day and I'm looking forward to next months class!!!

Happy creating!!!

xxx hugs xxx

April Calendar Journal Page

Hi everyone I know its May and I'm only just posting Aprils calendar journal page but as always time got away from me lol!!

For those of you who follow my Calendar journal page blogs  you will also notice that there hasn't been a post for March - well for the first time in over 3 years I to just accept that I wasn't going to be able to do one for March.  It really bugged me but sometime you just have to accept that's its just not going to happen and move on.  

So I did get April done and only a few days into the month.  I still haven't got Mays done and I probably wont until next week but never mind I have just done a great weekend of workshops so I have a good excuse for not having it done!

I have been struggling with my MOJO at home - don't seem to have the same problem when I attend my regular workshops but I guess that's because someone is guiding you through the project, where as at home you have to come up with it yourself.

I think this struggle is one of the reasons that I didn't get March done (well I did eventually get a background layed down but that's about it! I am hoping to go back and finish it but I think that might be wishful thinking lol)

So because my head was in a bad place getting April done was a  bit of an up hill slog!!

So when I finally did get started I put some gesso on my page and then splattered and sprayed on some inks and some mica sprays and used a straw to blow the colours around to create the dribbles.

Then I used Dylusions black paint and an ink blending tool and created the black circles for the day spaces.  I finished them off by adding an outline in Stickles.

So my focal point I used Tim Holtz Bird crazy stamps and stamped out 2 of the birds onto card and coloured them in using inktense pencils and a water brush.

I used an Andy Skinner stamp to create a branch for the birds to stand on and then I glued them down.

I had some alphabet letters cut out of chip board to I covered them in sand texture paste and let it dry.  Then I painted them to make them look like rusty metal.

The final touches were added with a quote out of Tim Holtz's 'small talk' quotes stickers and I blended round the edge of the page with rusty hinge and spiced marmalade distress ink pads to warm the colours up a bit.

I think in all the time I have been doing the calendar journal pages this is the second hardest to do!!

I did end up liking the background and the birds but wasn't so keen on how the day spaces turned out.  However by the time I wrote on the black in white pen it looked a bit better.

Still I live and learn and hope that I get my MOJO back really soon! 

May page here I come Lol!

wish me luck!!

Have a great month!

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